Re: [Usability]Ellipses ("...") in menu items

[Yanko Kaneti <yaneti declera com>]

On Mon, 2002-09-02 at 14:28, Calum Benson wrote:
> On Sun, 2002-09-01 at 15:37, Yanko Kaneti wrote:
> 
> > Please notice the tilt in the parenthesis. 
> > I believe most people, especially the ones coming from windows land
> > would rather expect _that_ information from the ellipses.
> 
> The HIG's recommendation on ellipses is identical to Windows
> recommendations (and everyone else's, AFAIR)... see the section headed
> "Ellipses" at:
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnwue/html/ch14a.asp
> 
> So I'm not clear what you think the difference is between the two...?

I am thinking about the difference between the recommendation and the
reality.  How many programs (including these from Microsoft) have you
seen that don't have ellipsis on the Options/Preferences menuitem ?

> I do agree that the current-but-standard definition perhaps seems
> needlessly complicated, but unfortunately if you just change it to
> "every item that opens a window has an ellipsis", menus do get pretty
> ugly pretty quickly :/  I don't know what the happy medium is, if there
> is one.

With the exception of "Properties" I dont see any compelling reason not
to stick to the simple rule. I dont remember ever being irritated by the
ellipsis in a overly long menuitem.  In fact with the most setups I've
used the ellpsis is just small enough to not get in the eye at all.
Still it gives that valuable imho indication that  there is more after
the menuitem. 

My main concern is the "safe" perception I tried to describe in my
previous mail. 


Regards
Yanko